I'm clearly off my rocker.

My but a week can make a difference. This week I've welcomed new baby ducklings and guinea keets. Boy has that been a roller coaster and more on that one later.

I've also sent my first batch of queries. 84 of them. Yes, that is eighty-four. Not four. I know. I'm clearly off my rocker. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom that says query and tweak. Query and tweak based on feedback. I've done that before. This time I'm doing things differently. This time I wrote my query based on my own voice, not what I think the agent wants to hear. My theory is that the right agent will "get" me based on this. That remains to be seen.

Never fear, there are lots more agents to be queried. I'll just sit on this batch and watch the reactions roll in (or maybe I should say the REJECTIONS roll in. heh.)

Back to the birdies. There has been some attrition which always happens with hatchlings, but the oddest development has been the duckling that wouldn't die. Flopsy (it's bad when you name one) is just too onery to die. Flopsy can't walk. I don't know what is wrong with him. Both legs work, but he simply flops onto his back. He's learned to right himself and scoot, roll, and scrabble his way around. I have to keep him seperated from the others so they don't trample him. He has his own box which he scoots around happily.

Other than an inability to walk, he's bright-eyed and enthusiastic about everything. Several times a day, I take him out and hold him at the waterer so he can drink and take him to the feed so he can eat. Sometimes I hold him in the water and let him splash around which makes him very happy.

That's his hallmark in life. Flopsy is the happiest critter you've ever seen. I hold him around the others so he can have contact with them and he receives their pecks and dishes out his own. I probably should have let him die the first day when it was clear he couldn't fend for himself, but he was just so determined to live that he's now made me his slave. If he isn't able to become mobile enough to be safe outside, I may have acquired a house duck. For those keeping track, that means two cats, two bunnies, and a duck in my house.

I'm am now officially a slave to fuzzy yellow duckling.